Three cases to understand the limitations of Twitter

When a platform suspends an account, restricts its use or eliminates some content, it impacts the possibility of that voice to disseminate information or opinions. Beyond the rules and procedures, the effect of the decision for the affected party is immediate. The natural action of publishing stops, the platform freezes, the message disappears. If that person is a journalist or influencer or was simply talking about a controversial topic, the reaction cannot be other: censorship!

During the last few days in Colombia, a couple of cases have been recorded that highlight these tensions. In addition to these, another one occurred a couple of months ago which, despite the initial noise, was forgotten. Below we refer to them to raise some key points about the relationship between the platforms and their users. The full description of each one can be found in the Circuit cases section.

The first one happened to Colombian lawyer Ana Bejarano, columnist of the portal Los Danieles. Minutes after Bejarano live-streamed her most recent column, Twitter detected suspicious behavior that compromised the security of her account. The network asked him to verify his cell phone number, however, the text message that the platform normally sends for verification never arrived. Consequently, according to Twitter's rules, the account was temporarily restricted(see case).

This restriction is a different action from suspension: while the latter is a sanction where the account and its contents are removed from the platform, in the temporary restriction users can see the account and its tweets -after going through a warning notice-. The account holder, however, cannot tweet.

According to Bejarano a few days later, Twitter representatives could not really explain to her what had happened. What is certain is that by not being able to circumvent the requirement to prove that she was in control of her account, Bejarano was silenced for almost a day, just at the key hours when she uses the platform to disseminate her opinions. "Perhaps unwittingly, this type of solution cohorts the censorship that some pursue," the columnist pointed out. 

The following case also involves another of Los Danieles' columnists, but on a different front. During the last few days a Spotify ad campaign for the podcast Uribe acorralado appeared on Twitter where Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell reveals how he conducted the investigation into the alleged crime of witness tampering of which Álvaro Uribe Vélez is accused. The former president's party, Centro Democrático, protested because it considers that this advertising violates Twitter's rules on political ads(see case). 

Twitter's rules prohibit any advertisement by candidates, political parties or elected or appointed government officials. In addition, the platform prohibits advertising content of a political nature, defined as content that refers to a candidate, political party, government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, law, regulation, directive or court ruling. Twitter, however, includes an exception for "news publishers" which, apparently, covers Coronell's podcast. However, it is worth asking whether the exception applies to Spotify, the advertiser in this case.

From both sides, there was talk of possible censorship by the platform. The Democratic Center expressed its concern about the fact that, while the journalist was able to promote the content, the party was not allowed to advertise "relevant information for the general public". For Coronell, the Democratic Center's complaint was an attempt to affect the distribution of the podcast.

The episode put the finger on the sore point: the rules on advertisements and their exceptions leave a wide margin for maneuver and interpretation. This time the advertising content was kept on the air, but could a contrary decision be made in similar cases?

Finally, in July this year, Gustavo Gómez, director of Caracol Radio's radio program 6AM Hoy por Hoy, received a Twitter message informing him that his account, with more than 500,000 followers, had been suspended for non-compliance with copyright rules(see case). To denounce noise pollution in public space, Gómez had recorded and uploaded a video showing that someone had played loud music in the street. Twitter identified the music in this video as an unauthorized use of copyrightedmaterial .‍

Gómez's account had already been suspended in February for similar reasons: a use of incidental music triggered a process for alleged copyright infringement of which he was unaware. At the time, Gómez criticized in his program's editorial the way Twitter notified him - which he described as "hostile" - and stated that the platform was a network that had "less and less possibility of expression" and that it was "pregnant with cave-like restrictions". Gómez ended up resigning himself and his account is still suspended.

In the digital environment, public debate takes place in spaces enabled and controlled by private agents. For this reason, it is now the actions of platforms that are viewed with suspicion.

Under U.S. online copyright law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA), platforms must go through a notice-and-takedown process when their users make unauthorized use of third-party material. Under this mechanism, a copyright claim obliges the platform to take down the content and inform the user that he or she has the possibility to file an appeal to have the publication reinstated (known as counter-notification). The latter option, however, is not easy for users to understand and process.

These debates are closely linked to the exercise of freedom of expression. Traditionally, the guarantee of this right has been in the hands of the State, which has been required to refrain from restricting it. However, in the digital environment, public debate takes place in spaces enabled and controlled by private agents. For this reason, it is now the actions of the platforms that are viewed with suspicion.

Through this type of action, the platforms do not intend to arbitrarily and deliberately silence users. However, the shortcomings of the processes and the lack of clarity of some rules do tend to generate among those affected the idea that they were illegitimately restrained. These users, in turn, take it upon themselves to spread that message among their followers. 

Some researchers, such as Helen Freshwater, have proposed redefining censorship from the point of view of the sufferer. According to her, denying that someone has been censored because the facts do not fit a classic or established category in the law would be an "unjustified repetition of their original exclusion." 

At Circuito we will continue to explore this debate, trying to put the cases in perspective. For many, some of these examples do not constitute censorship; for others, the question is superfluous. In any case, the lack of knowledge of the rules, the validity of some decisions and, above all, the communication problems between the platforms and their users, affect the trust between one and the other.